Na, nad, nag

Challenge level 2 number 9 “that they didn’t want” came out as “nag 'yn nhw’n moyn.”
I thought na in that context became nad before a vowel while nag means than. Is nag in this sense just a colloquial way of saying nad?

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Yes it is! :+1:

Rich :slight_smile:

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Diolch rich. I wanted to be sure I wasn’t missing something.

While I’ve got you, this course teaches disgwyl for ‘look’. I though disgwyl meant ‘expect’. Happy to roll with it but then how do you say expect yn Gymraeg y De?

They use disgwyl for that too…

I’m expecting you to be there tomorrow

I’m looking for you to be there tomorrow

It can also mean ‘wait’…which could be a third example above.

Context sorts out any differences…which aren’t very big

Rich :slight_smile:

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Oce. Diolch eto.

Can I jump in here and ask about nag? This word keeps popping up when I don’t expect it and I can tell it’s some kind of way of saying a negative. Do you use it to say a negative if it’s a clause in the middle of a sentence? And is it just with nhw or can it be with i, you, she, we etc?

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Hi @emma-ireland

Yes, that’s right - it’s a way of saying ‘that’ and ‘not’ at the same time in the middle of a sentence - which means what follows is a negative statement.

It’s a cool thing!..very neat!

In a text book you find ‘na’ and ‘nad’ in front of vowels but Iestyn uses nag which I think Is quite widely used.

Because it uses the ‘yw’ or ydy form after it, the nag variant ends up being prominent, and yes, it works with all forms so, for example:

…nag yw e’n…, that he isn’t / doesn’t
…nag yw i’n…that I’m not…

…and equally…

…nag oedd e’n…that he wasn’t /didn’t
…nag o’n ni wedi…that we hadn’t…

Rich :slight_smile:

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Brill thanks. I’ll see if I can remember and not get caught out :slight_smile: one more quick question, are ‘so ni’n gwybod’ and ‘do ni ddim yn gwybod’ the same thing?

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Yep, :+1:

Rich :slight_smile:

Well, not quite the same are they? So ni’n gwybod is we don’t know and is the same as Dyn ni ddim yn gwybod. Do’n ni ddim yn gwybod is we didn’t know. If you were writing it out in full, like “we did not know” it would be: doedden ni ddim yn gwybod but people don’t speak like that and doedden get’s compressed to do’n. In the present tense “we do not know” would be Dydyn ni ddim yn gwybod which also gets compressed. That’s what you’d write but everyone down South seems to say so ni, which is a bit slangy but quicker and simpler.

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Oo you are right @darian - thank you… I was expecting a present tense follow up question so that’s what I saw :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:

‘So’ creates a negative present tense…

So ni’n gwybod…and…

D’yn ni ddim yn gwybod

…mean the same thing: we do not know/ don’t know

…so it just goes to show - even after all these years - I still can’t read the question properly :face_with_hand_over_mouth:

Apologies!

Rich :slight_smile:

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Ah thanks both. I’m always getting tenses wrong. Can you use that s’on way for others, not just we? Could you say s’on nhw gwybod for they don’t know and s’on hi gwybod for she doesn’t know? I remember soch chi disgwyl for you don’t look from an earlier challenge. Could you swap that to s’ot ti disgwyl?

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Yes, (yes and yes!) there is a full set:

Sa i - eg Sa i’n gwybod, i don’t know (which is an extremely useful one :smile:)
So ti - eg so ti’n disgwyl- you (familiar) don’t look…
So fe
So hi eg so hi’n gwybod - she doesn’t know

So ni
So chi
So nhw eg so nhw’n gwybod - they don’t know

Rich :slight_smile:

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Fab! The patterns are falling into place!

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Just seen this.
Can you confirm that this is an alternative way to say for example:
Dw i’n meddwl ei fod e ddim yn dod - I don’t think that he is coming.
Alternative: Dw i’n meddwl nag yw e’n dod.
Thanks.

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Hi @mattclarke51

…what you have is ‘I think he isn’t coming’…

But I think you have the idea?

Rich :slight_smile:

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